Values Debate
by Cordeliers Club
Summary: How Prouvaire joined the Amis. As a sort of indoctrination, Enjolras argues intimidatingly with people about human rights, and Prouvaire very narrowly avoids missing out on this almost-historic group. Warning for nerd!Amis, footnotes.


**BEFORE YOU GO ON: **So, a while ago when I wrote this fic, I'd read a little of the huge Ami!Fic which presented the hypothesis that everyone had to sleep with everyone else to join the Amis. And I thought: Hey, what if instead, they _all had to debate with each other_? And so I had the image of Enjolras prowling around, engaging people in arguments and deciding whether or not he wanted them in his Amis. Prouvaire's turn, first, because I am militant about Prouvaire being, well, himself, but still talented capable of argument—that The Hills Are Alive thing is _occasional_. However 1832 is not at all my area, especially in France, and so it's likely I may be off—factually, or just in tone. Sometimes I just googled, like "doctrinaires + journals 19th century", so the quality may not stand up. If this is the case, let me know, please.

Finally. It is VERY unlikely that the Amis would ever just debate huge topics like Freedom and Rights using only primary philosophy. Their focus would be much finer and more relevant, like, "Did you read the article on urban debt in that obscure journal?" "Of course I did! Are you familiar with the counter-argument in an even more obscure journal? That's Combeferre's pen name, by the way!" But I like to think that sometimes, they would just go for the slam dunk and talk about massive abstracts with evidence from Rousseau.

Also there is a big line in the middle of this fic and I can't get rid of it! PANIC.

**Values Debate**

_Or, Prouvaire Joins les Amis de l'ABC_

The collection of students in the Café Musain was particularly quiet—tired, probably, and Enjolras had just been seized by a thought and was writing furiously with inkblots all over his page. No one wanted to disturb him.

Courfeyrac, having read an article in _le Moniteur_ he found offensive, was folding the page into a sort of paper hat. He stared around the room, looking for a suitable conversation to join. But Grantaire and Bahorel were absent, and Boussuet and Feuilly were debating almost fiercely against Combeferre, Prouvaire and Joly, never mind that it seemed that they all agreed. It was Prouvaire who was the most incensed, and because his strategy of debate was sometimes to shout at the denouement of his argument, his clear voice shook everyone:

_"__…Attachant à ses vers des ailes enflammées_

_De ton tonnerre qui s'endort,_

_De la vertu proscrite embrassant la défense,_

Dé'nonce aux juges infernaux

_Ces juges, ces jurés qui frappent l'innocence,_

_Hécatombe à leurs tribunaux!"_

It was rote, but said with a passion that made it seem extemporaneous, as if he had been possessed by the ghost of André Chénier in a poetic mood. Having risen at some point during this recitation, he sat down, saying, "And that is how I mean _royal_: in possession of thunder and flaming wings when the world has gone mad."

"Jehan," said Enjolras, "please do not shout, I don't care that they bait you," but he was smiling a very little bit.

Courfeyrac smiled as well, walking over to set his paper hat on Joly's head. Joly swatted it off, saying venomously, "Do not crown me with that nonsense," and Courfeyrac shrugged.

Bousseut said, "Fine, Prouvaire, that's a free press"—looking at the paper hat on the floor—"and important. But _conscience_ can only come from the people, collectively, and in agreement."

Combeferre shook his head. "The people are partisan—selfish, despite everything," he said.

"The Hand of Greed," said Feuilly, referring to Saint-Simon. Feuilly was a constant surprise to Courfeyrac, who thought that all working men shared some particular essence—noble, but dusty. But he would have picked Feiully out as a student, much like himself but with less style.

"The _salutary _is frequently unpopular, and so you will have no agreement but still require conscience," Prouvaire said in something more like his usual tone. His cheeks were very red, however, and his hair looked inexplicably like he had been in a real fight; tousled and half out of its ribbon.

"Charming thing," said Courfeyrac to him, half on impulse and half to make Bousseut forget to respond, "how did we find you? I seem to think that Enjolras rescued you from a purgatory of poetic purposelessness to immortalize us all."

"Please don't alliterate, Courfeyrac, it embarrasses your school," said Feiully, who was not a Romantic.

"You wouldn't know a thing," said Courfeyrac tartly.

"For your own sake, Courfeyrac, I hope you don't expect me to immortalize you, especially saying that," said Prouvaire, laughing. Combeferre, seated next to him, turned to fix the ribbon in his hair.

It had not been like what Courfeyrac said at all.

* * *

When Enjolras had first met Prouvaire, who was seated in a café outside the university, looking dreamily through the _Journal des débats,_ he felt annoyed.

He had seen the boy several times, around the university, outside the university where general oratorical agitations were afoot, and a few times beyond that. Still, Enjolras knew nothing of his politics. He only knew that the boy was terribly young, and timid, so entirely unconscious of himself that he always seemed hastily and incompletely dressed. This disarray, and his frequent habit of writing, had led Enjolras to surmise that he was a poet.

Enjolras determined, with the barest capriciousness, to find out more.

"I've seen you around before," he said, seating himself across from the boy. At first glance, Enjolras' suspicions about his dress were confirmed. The cravat was knotted awfully, and his grayish curls were in mild chaos. He was blushing, Enjolras realized, but such was the usual magnitude of his presence.

"Yes, probably you have," the boy said.

"I am Auguste Enjolras, and I am pleased to meet you."

"Jean Prouvaire," said Jean Prouvaire.

"Are you a poet?"

"Possibly, but I'm no poet if you only apply the term to those who produce poetry. I'm not very prolific."

Enjolras nodded, beginning to get a picture. "And you are reading the _Journal des débats_, I see. You are taking notes."

Jean Prouvaire put down his pen, and an inkspot began to grow. He had unusually delicate hands, which suited him but not honest work, Enjolras noted with some disdain.

"The _Journal des débats_ is the _salon_ of the Doctrinaires," said Enjolras, "The_ Journal __de Broglie_," he almost spat, referring to the actual _salon_ of the Doctrinaires.

"So it is," said Prouvaire.

Enjolras had a cool expression by habit; when he was angry or preparing to argue, positively frigid. He had eyes like ice. Prouvaire shivered, expecting that like ice, those eyes would steam in the warm café. "You are lucky," Enjolras said, "for your lot, as poets do not disturb the delicate _juste milieu_," the effect of this harsh as the noise of a boot in snow.

"I think you have probably not met many poets, or at least, not the prolific ones, and not as Robespierre did," said Prouvaire.

"You refer to André Chénier?"

"He's a notable example of the hazards."

"Not so dangerous an occupation now," Enjolras observed, "with a 'monarchy limited by a limited number of bourgeois'. A limited number of men who would have adored Chénier. However I wonder at the wisdom of legitimizing government in this fashion, by judging its opinion of Chénier, when so few can read, let alone comprehend a Feuillant."

Prouvaire noticed that his pen was blotting the entire page, and picked it up with a flicker of a frown. "It would be a poorly-run state, whose rulers cannot even read."

"It is a poorly-run state whose rulers _can_ read," Enjolras countered, with perfect frigidness, as if he were not arguing but teaching some difficult truth. He almost raised an eyebrow at Prouvaire, whose cheeks and ears were very red, flustered in contrast to his own coolness. Enjolras went on: "this is the most common perversion of the social contract; that the common man is said to know nothing of what is good for himself and gives up his sovereignty by ignorance."

Prouvaire opened his mouth, as if he were about to speak, and reconsidering, shut it. Enjolras almost rose to leave, the test finished, but then Prouvaire spoke: "No one would condemn the ignorant to be undeserving—the indulgence for which the masses trade sovereignty is to be proliferate, I mean: 'The real vice of a civilized republic is in the Turkish fable of the dragon with many heads and the dragon with many tails.'"

Enjolras nodded, staring with a chilly mildness across the table. "They are a majority, therefore forbid it they be heard!" he said. Sarcasm on Enjolras was not ugly or vengeful, his fair eyebrows raised and mouth smiling perfectly, "I have heard it said, that among men there is no 'other distinction than that of their virtues and talents', but we can deny liberty because the people are ignorant and proliferate? You and Voltaire would have it that the people is a dragon. I assure you that Voltaire and yourself need not worry about the ravaging of a mythic beast. Not as much as the people realizing what belongs to them and taking it."

"There is a problem resulting from so many selfish men given a voice; each voice is raised to a shout at once; the result is a conflict and as we know, from the ashes of these rise dictators and tyrants."

"Even if a man 'Intends only his own gain… he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention': the public good. The necessary and sacred good of liberty," Enjolras was still didactic; not sounding cruel, but without any trace of friendliness at all.

"I beg you to consider," said Prouvaire, "the tragedy posited by both Aristotle and Thucydides, that public property will suffer abuse at the hands of a multitude: 'That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it'. 'Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is somebody else's business.' These freedoms and enfranchisements are posed as if they are public goods, and they are; they are goods that can be given and taken as you have said—"

Enjolras did not usually interrupt, he did not see argument as a zero-sum equation like many debaters, because his convictions were always stronger than his opponent's, but this boy he could not allow to go on, saying that the social contract was subject to mercantilism, that it was anything but inviolate. My God! Thought Enjolras, What monsters men can innocently become! This boy is only soft—a soft opinion, a soft and distracted mind, the fingers of his fragile hand soft as well—and this makes him not only without use, but horrible as well. Men like these will drag France gently to her death with quiet sighs and decorative ennui. Enjolras cannot allow it. It was capricious to think that this boy could join them, or that he was anything but a woozy doctrinaire. Poets were not courageous as they had been during the first revolution. Enjolras decided that he was done here, and so interrupted:

"—Please do not spit on the _droits d'homme_. I hope that one day you will see: France is equal to greater things than the jaundiced _Constitutionnel_. Good day, _Monsieur_ Prouvaire."

Jean Prouvaire blinked. "I beg your pardon," he said, his dark eyes large and confused. Enjolras was standing up. "Have I offended you?"

"You offend no one person, Monsieur, you offend France."

And then Prouvaire said an amazing thing: "Do you think that all that with Voltaire and Thucydides and the _Journal_—that it was my _opinion_? Gracious God!"

Enjolras stopped moving.

Prouvaire continued: "I am so sorry! I only thought that we were debating; that you wanted someone to oppose your view! I had no idea you thought I was serious! I am writing a counter-argument in the margin of the _Journal_, you see," he paused to laugh, disbelievingly, "_freedom_ as public property--no, it is a sacred right and an axiom to a man's soul."

Enjolras, though his expression did not change, had something suddenly angelic about his face. The iciness seemed to have melted in an instant, and no trace remained.

"You dissemble very convincingly," said Enjolras.

"I cannot give my hands to the abased unless I know what I lead them into," said Prouvaire, and there seemed to be a kinship in his shining eyes and Enjolras' bright face.

"Have you been to the Café Musain?" Enjolras asked, "it is not very far from here."

* * *

HOLY CRAP, LOADS OF NOTES:

1. Iambe VI of André Chénier's _Ode to Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday_, referring to "a poor poet…who alone, in prison, as death he fights". Translation of Prouvaire's quote, from the internets:

_Gluing to his verses the flaming wings_

_Of your thunder that no longer stings,_

_Of virtue exiled taking the defense,_

_Denounces to the judges of all hells_

_Those judges, those juries that strike innocence,_

_Creating a hecatomb at their tribunals_

Prouvaire has a huge crush on André Chénier, har har.

2. Saint-Simon's metaphor of "the Hand of Greed" was meant with specific attention to working men, so of course Feuilly has him on the mind all the time. Also, no, I have no idea what they're arguing about here, and probably they don't either, but Prouvaire evidently thinks it's an attack on the role of a poet as the conscious of society, which is totally Prouvaire's thing.

3. the _Journal des débats _was a Doctrinaire paper. They met frequently in the salon of the Duchesse de Broglie.

4. "A monarchy limited…" : Enjolras quotes François Guizot, Big Doctrinaire Honcho

5. "The real vice…" Prouvaire quotes Voltaire, who goes on: "The many heads hurt each other, and the many tails obey a single head which wants to devour everything." There are too many footnotes for a fic as silly as this is.

6. "Other distinction than…" Enjolras refers to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

7. "Intends only his own…" Enjolras quotes Adam Smith on the Invisible Hand, which is probably unlikely

8. "That which is common…" and "Meanwhile each fancies": Aristotle and Thucydides respectively. Prouvaire presages the "Tragedy of the Commons", a theory you and I thought was introduced by Garrett Hardin but was actually William Forster Lloyd in 1933, which uses the image of a common grazing area to counter the Invisible Hand.

9. The _Constitutionnel_ was an old Doctrinaire paper, Wikipedia said so.

10. I owe much, for inspiration at least, to Charles Baudelaire for Enjolras' Prouvaire-disgust, who in_ Mademoiselle Bistouri _writes, "La vie fourmille de monstres innocents"

A part I was very sad to remove: "You are lucky for your lot" Enjolras said, "as poetry, I have heard, is not the avenue to _enrichissez-vous_," he said this very bitingly, the noise as harsh as a boot on ice, with precise emphasis on the plural.

I try to check my facts, and this time, using a few cursory Google searches to find the context for Guizot's "enrichissez-vous" quote, I learned that he seems to have said it in his capacity as Prime Minister, after all the Amis were long dead. So, I do not get to use it to further the cause of Enjolras-Scarcasm, but knowledge is power! All in all, a weird experience, and when I retrofitted the way-more-lame indictment of following Guizot's _juste milieu_, a political middle way, I became very unhappy with this part of Enjolras' exchange. What a pedantic insult, Enjolras, we're all totally scared. Nerd.


End file.
